The moon had risen soon after sunset, and after dinner they sat smoking in the garden, which was planted with pomegranates and peach-trees, and fringed by a row of cypresses, which looked black in the moonlight. All was perfectly still but for the sleepy prattle of the stream below. Now and then a nightingale gave out a throatful of song, or some spray of asphodel, ripe to the core, cracked and scattered its seed round it. The cat prowled about the garden, now creeping through the shadow of the trees, or flattening herself out on the ground, and now making springs at some imaginary prey in the moonlight, and when they went up-stairs she preceded them, and, jumping onto Mitsos' bed, lay purring like a tea-kettle.
They started again early the next morning, having loaded the pony with provisions, for Yanni preferred to suffer from his blister than from hunger, and struck in a southeasterly direction across the plain, leaving Sparta with its red roofs and olive-groves on the left, over low hills of red earth, covered in this spring-time with cistus in full flower, tall white heather, and myrtle in the freshness of its fragrant leaf. About two hours' going brought them to the Eurotas, flowing clear and bright over its shining pebble-bed, on which the sunlight drew a diaper of light and shade, sliding on from pool to shallow, and shallow to rapid, and ford to ford. Here Mitsos, who in his inland life pined for the amphibious existence of Nauplia, came upon a deep pool, and in a moment was stripped and swimming. From there another two hours led them across the plain to the foot of the hills, where they halted and ate their midday meal, looking across the green plain to where Taygetus, rising in gray shoulder over shoulder, met the sky in a spear-head of snow.
So for two more days they went on, sleeping sometimes during the middle of the day under the shade of aromatic pines, or behind some bluff of earth in a dry torrent-bed, and as they got nearer to Tripoli and Argos, marching through the cool, still night over shoulders and outstretched limbs of mountain range, or down through silent valleys all aflush with spring, and spending the daylight hours in some sheltered nook or cave, each keeping alternate watches while the other slept. Thus came they down to Myloi, where they were to get the boat which should take them across the bay, early one morning while it was still dark. So once again in the sweetness of sunrise Mitsos saw the blue mirror of the bay spread out smooth and clear at his feet, and the first rays of morning sparkling on the town at the other side, turning the damp roofs to sheets of gold, and on a white house at the head of the bay, where his heart was.